Igneel's Will
by Guerisseur
Summary: Weakened and trapped in a world not her own, General Esdeath yearned for retribution. But a chance meeting with a certain fiery dragon slayer may still her bloodlust, as well as her heart. Slow burn NaEsu.


Introduction

Before diving into this story, I feel have to clarify a few things first. To start, the main pairing for this story will be Natsu x Esdeath. I am _obsessed_ with this crossover pairing, so there will be no changing my mind on this. Additionally, this will be a slow burn fanfic. There's no way I can build a romantic relationship for them in a few chapters. It will take some time. They need to work out a lot of stuff first before they can go jumping into that stage. Please be patient!

Secondly, I update inconsistently. Sometimes my chapters will be long; sometimes they'll be short. Sometimes I'll update once a week; sometimes once a month. My free-time is constantly fluctuating, but I'll try my best to update _at least_ once a month. I apologize in advance for this inconvenience!

Thirdly, it would be best to also call this an alternate universe/canon divergence sort of fanfic. The story will take place in the _Fairy Tail_ world, two months after the dissolution of the Fairy Tail guild (that is, following the Tartaros arc but before the Avatar arc). There will be major spoilers from the _Fairy Tail_ manga!

Fourthly, I will tweak some canon information around so that it can work with my plot. You will notice some misinformation here and there, so know that I deliberately made it so.

Finally, a warning. I'm not overly fond of the blood and gore in _Akame ga Kill_ ; therefore, you won't see much of that in this fanfic. Consider it me toning the ratings down on the same level as _Fairy Tail_. However, this particular chapter contains mentions of graphic violence, torture, death, and rape/non-con. Nothing descriptive, but implied. Read on at your own discretion.

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 **Igneel's Will**

Chapter One

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Numa Seika was a great disappointment. His valor and spirit were too fragile to endure even the most rudimental of torturing methods. The man had utterly let Esdeath down. The Empire had laid waste to his army of farmers, miners, and fishers in less than a day, while she defeated the man himself sooner than that. But surely he could have lasted longer, or at least enough to satisfy her bloodlust? Sadly, _no_. Clearly, he underperformed all the expectations that were given to him by his people and Esdeath. In the end, Numa Seika was just another disappointment, and he will be remembered as such, if at all.

However, Esdeath did gain something from Numa Seika, and that something was quite introspective. See, in the past months, Esdeath has been suffering from what can only be called as "a dry spell," but in the sense that killing and torturing no longer appealed to her like had once did before. She found herself unfulfilled the more she killed and the more she tortured. The screams of the dying no longer made her shudder with excitement. The smell of death no longer made her feel at home. Even when she tortured Numa Seika, who lasted longer than most, she felt the void in her expanding.

She even resorted to asking Daidara, Nyau, and Liver on the matter, but she was met by three different forms of indecisiveness.

Daidara looked at her as if the gods he didn't believe in had forsaken him. He was so sure that if he answered her wrong that _he_ would be sent to her torturing chamber. And so Daidara attempted to answer her question as if he were attempting to answer the meaning of life. (That day, Esdeath swore she would never try to overexert Daidara's thinking capabilities ever again, for both their sakes.)

Esdeath should not have even bothered asking Nyau. He completely failed to see her dilemma. She suspected that he was still at the early stages of his youth, when he still found pleasure in skewering his victims while they lay there hapless, screaming. She also suspected that it will take him years before he could ever reach her level of indifference. A year ago, she would have praised Nyau for his innovative torturing methods. Now, she merely overlooked his hobbies with a bored expression on her face.

Liver was the only one who came close to answering her question. He confessed her hobbies did not excite him in the same way it excited her, but he could relate to her in other regards. He explained that Esdeath needed something new in her life, something she never had before. She needed something that would overcome the rush she felt during a good hunt, the pleasure in seeing pain, and the thrill of being the strongest. She needed something that transcended all of that which made her, well… _Esdeath_. But such a concept was hard to grasp, and Liver admitted he hadn't the slightest clue as to what that something was, or even where to begin.

Esdeath was still at a lost.

Eventually, some of her underlings started joking about her growing a moral conscious. They noticed she no longer spent long hours in her torture chamber like she usually did, and tended to slaughter her enemies abruptly, instead of prolonging their suffering. Esdeath remembered shaking her head then. _"Don't be absurd."_ She had said to them without any animosity, but they recoiled away from her all the same. _"I still find castrating men to be one of my most favorite pastimes."_ She didn't mean it as a threat to them, of course. Unfortunately, the men took her words as an incentive to never joke around her again.

After that, Esdeath tried to ignore her slump. She focused on polishing her talents in the art of pain and carnage. By then, the rumors of the Northern Tribe uprising circulated around the Empire. This piqued her interest considerably, for it had been a long time since she last dealt with a potential civil war of this caliber. The last rebellion had erupted in the east, and had been put down just as suddenly as it had started. Esdeath was unable to join in the fray due to the Emperor's (or rather Prime Minister's) orders to stay and guard the Empire in case the rebellion escalated. She personally thought this was a foolish order; however, she knew it wasn't entirely foolish either. There was an upstart rebel group who were actively eliminating the nobles in power within their city. The Prime Minister wanted Esdeath to uproot this group first before they cause any more trouble. He did not count on Najenda's defecting from the Empire to have anything to do with it, and he was sore upon discovering that she did. The group called themselves Night Raid, and Esdeath only knew three of their members by name, face, and the Imperial Arms they wield (or _used_ to wield, in Najenda's case).

They were quite a talented group of assassins. But before Esdeath could fully sink her teeth into thwarting their efforts, the eastern rebellion had been stomped out, and new revolts from every corner of the Empire sparked in its place. These revolts were so minor and trivial that sending her Three Beasts would be enough to snuff them out. But the Prime Minster must have grown tired of all this talk of mutiny, for he sent Esdeath into the frontlines. She accepted her orders graciously.

Esdeath eliminated all who opposed the Empire. It had been more than a year since the kill order, and she had collected more spoils of war than she would ever require in this lifetime, or the next several. Eventually, her task led her here, presently, to the north. As soon as she restored order to this cold wasteland, she would then return to the capital and report to the Emperor that her year-long chore had finally reached a close. She anticipated that her next mission would be to eliminate Night Raid, for she had heard rumors that the group had grown recently in both strength and numbers. She was quite eager to face them in battle, or rather to _truly_ face in them in battle, again.

Perhaps Najenda and her brood of renegades would cure Esdeath's current crisis. But it was unlikely.

" _General Esdeath_!" greeted someone from behind her. "I have a letter for you from Prime Minister Honest."

Esdeath turned around and recognized the man's uniform and the tactful distance he placed between the two of them. The man was indeed a personal envoy of the Prime Minister. He held out a sealed envelope to her with the Prime Minister's seal of approval facing her, in case she had any doubt about the sender. Not that she had any doubt about the sender. The Prime Minister made a habit out of being the first (between himself and the Emperor) to congratulate her on her successes. Whether or not he was trying to kiss up to her, she couldn't tell. Nor did she care.

"Very well," she took the letter and waved the man away. The man saluted and exited the scene.

She opened the letter, and read its contents.

 _Greetings General Esdeath,_

 _I would like to be the first to congratulate you on your latest victory. News travels fast in the Capital of your heroic deeds and we couldn't be any more thrilled. His Majesty requests that you return to us immediately to deliver your report. His Majesty also wishes to celebrate the Empire's triumph—you know, with all the spectacles and such—upon your return. I couldn't agree more. Your success certainly calls for the grandest of celebrations! It shall be a great banquet where only the esteemed can attend. You, of course, shall be the star of this revel. And I implore you to bring a_ date _to this event, so that you may relish the proceedings to the_ fullest _._

 _His Majesty and I eagerly await for your return._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Prime Minister Honest_

… _Oh, and do give my regards to the Prince of the Northern Monkeys for me. His_ sister _misses him dearly._

Esdeath frowned. It was the kind of frown one makes after reading something distasteful.

She was more than aware that the Prime Minister had taken a rather carnal liking to Numa Seika's sister. She was captured by Great General Budo's armed forces sometime before Numa Seika's downfall. Esdeath vaguely remembered hearing rumors of the girl practically living in the Prime Minister's bed. A shame, really. The Prime Minister acted and smelled like an old pig. His bed especially reeked like a barn, despite the horde of maids he had ushering in and out like clockwork. No women in their right mind, strong or weak, would ever bed with such a pig. Not even Esdeath would subject her worst enemies to such extreme level of humiliation.

But Numa Seika's sister was not the off-putting part about the letter. Rather, it was the plan for celebration. The Prime Minister knew that Esdeath disliked banquets as much as she disliked peace conferences. The sole purpose of having a banquet was for the aristocrats to dance around one another like monkeys, each vying for the emperor's attention, and each plotting to kill anyone who succeeds. After her promotion to general, some of those nobles turned to capture _her_ attention as well as His Majesty's. She politely refused them, of course. As if she would take to any of those weaklings.

But then she came across a great revelation: What sort of man _would_ she accept as lover?

The thought of having a lover never crossed her mind until then. Not that she was never exposed to such matters. Her soldiers did like to take advantage of the women and children they've captured, and Esdeath didn't see any reason to stop their sport. But she had never considered her own interests in the matter. Most likely because she never had any interest in it in the first place. She may not have been one for sexual desires, but the concept of "romance" was especially foreign to her. Her world was defined by pain and death. There had been no room for anything else. Until now. Until she considered its possibility.

A lover. What sort of lover should she take?

Moreover, what would having a lover be like?

While contemplating over these questions, Esdeath walked back to her tent. Once there, she pulled out several pieces of papers and a pen, and began to write things down with a fond smile on her face. She was creating a list of what sort of qualities she desired from her future lover. It was like a new project for her, and it felt a lot like newfound hope. For the first time in ages, she felt happy. Not excited or thrilled, but simply happy. The kind of happiness that was pure and uncorrupt, strange as it may sound.

Esdeath—the Empire's Strongest General, Ice Queen, and Master of War and Bloodshed—was now in pursuit of one thing and one thing only: to fall in love.

—

The full moon was high above the night sky when the Apparition strode into Esdeath's tent without caution. Esdeath appeared to be fast asleep at her desks, surrounded by crumpled papers which cluttered the floor at her feet. In her sleeping state, she seemed surprisingly vulnerable for someone who reveled in warfare. But the Apparition was no fool. He knew this woman would be ready to attack at the drop of a coin. So the Apparition approached her with ease, barely concealing his monstrous aura that could have easily been felt by Esdeath, had the Apparition been anything other than an illusion.

After a moment, the Apparition sighed.

"What have they done to you, _Glacius_?" Esdeath did not stir as the Apparition solemnly spoke. "I sent you to this world in order to teach you a lesson. I wanted you to understand that there are humans far more despicable than the humans from our home. I wanted you to learn that the path you sought is impossible. I wanted you to see that the humans from our world need to be protected so that they don't end up like this world. Corrupt. Vile. Evil. Don't you see? _I_ —" the Apparition's lips quivered once, "I did not mean for this to happen."

"I underestimated the humans of this world. I did not think they could defeat you. I did not think they would draw your blood and use it as weapon for their wretched wars. I did not think this _woman_ ," the Apparition glared at Esdeath, "was capable of taming you. I should have foreseen this outcome, but I was too blinded by my own ego. I thought this world was weak and deplorable. I did not stop to think that they could be dangerous. The folly is mine, my friend. Forgive me."

"I come to you bearing grim news. The Black Wizard, the Black Dragon, the Golden Mage—it is just as I predicted to you that day. If we do not prevent this great catastrophe from arising, our world will be brought into everlasting ruin. We must destroy E.N.D. But now, as it stands, you are the only one who can do it. Your blood is the key to everything."

"Return home, Ice Dragon King Glacius. You may hate me now, but... there are greater things at stake here."

With that said, the Apparition snapped his finger.

And Esdeath screamed.

—

It felt like she was being burned alive from the inside. The fire started within her chest. She awoke with a start because of it, causing her to push her chair back for space while clutching uselessly at her chest. But before she could search out and exterminate the perpetrator that was doing this to her, the burning pain spread throughout her body like wildfire.

The pain was excruciating. It was unlike anything she had ever dealt before. She fell to the ground, where then her body attempted to thrashed against this invisible foe. But each movement further spread the pain. When she attempted to use her powers, she convulsed. Her lunges threatened to collapse. Her heart raced at an impossibly rapid rate. Her skin seared her, and had she not a sliver of self-control, she would have torn at her own flesh just to relieve herself of that agony.

She could not use her powers, not when it would prove futile in the end. It was as if the Demon's Extract was the source of her torment.

No, not if. There could be no other cause.

For nowhere else did it hurt more than where the mark of Demon's Extract resided. Her blood which mingled with that danger beast's blood, and that flowed through her veins… this explained why the pain spread so readily throughout her body.

The danger beast inside was self-destructing, which meant the same for Esdeath.

How pathetic. For her to fall by her own hands without intending to, was beneath her principle. She had hoped her death would come from the most glorious battle. She wanted to die by the hands of someone else, someone stronger than herself. Not like this.

Oh well. It can't be helped. Such was the fate of those who were weak, after all. The strong survive while the weak parish.

And so, Esdeath accepted death with a welcoming smile.


End file.
